


Dreams of rain

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [80]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: Three times Bellamy dreams with black rain. And one time, he doesn't
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Echo
Series: The 100 Fics [80]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/543928
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	Dreams of rain

**Author's Note:**

> Erin always wants hurt/comfort stories. I think this qualifies..... More than usual

Rain falls in sheets, trapping him. The noise against the hood of the rover is thunderous but not loud enough to muffle the screams through the radio.

Bellamy clenches his teeth and steps on the gas pedal.

“Come on.” The rover has never let him down; in this chaotic world, it has always been something he could rely on. It can’t fail him now; it can’t! “Come on.”

‘ _Bellamy! Where are you?’_ The voice through the radio is full of panic.

He hears the wheels turning, digging him deeper into the ditch.

_‘Bellamy, please! You promised! You said you would be here!’_

Lightning slashes through the sky, illuminating the trees, black against a sudden flash of white. Their hulking shadows look like corpses pointing gnarled, accusing fingers at him. 

When Bellamy screws his eyes shut, he sees Peter’s face: with his big brown eyes and pointy nose and his tall tales about the Ark’s exchange. Peter, who survived the first battle for the Dropship, and the Mountain Men, and was always up to look after the younger delinquents.

Bellamy screams in frustration.

Peter is one of the 100, he is one of the people that followed his lead, and he swore to protect him. And now, when he needs him most, Bellamy is failing him, letting him die, just like he let Monroe die.

His fingers shake when he grabs the mike off the dashboard.

“Can you hear me? Mark, Peter, are you there?”

The silence is worse than the screams. The silence is charged with death, and _you did this_ , _it is your fault, you are worthless and can’t protect anyone._ It chokes him with failure and shame and uselessness.

“Bellamy!”

He jolts awake.

The dark metal of the Ring reminds him of Alpha Station. His stomach twists. Then he registers the hard mattress under his shoulders, the tears on his cheeks, and a hand on his shoulder, grounding him, reminding him where he is—the Ring. Primefaya has passed, and he failed even more people in the end.

He takes a shuddering breath and turns to look at the owner of the hand. Echo jumps three steps back, folds her hands at her back, and lowers her eyes. Bellamy shifts into a more seated position, trying not to frown at her.

“Echo.” The spy has never come to his room. A foolish part of him didn’t think she even knew where he slept – which is ridiculous, they are seven people inside a small spaceship, and she is a spy, of course, she knew. “What’s wrong? What time is it?”

She looks unsure, and Bellamy taps on the tablet on his bedside table. It’s three AM. “What are you doing up? Is something wrong?”

“No, Bellamy. I was just doing the night rounds, and I heard,” she shifts her weight and finishes with a careful, “a noise.”

The tears on his cheeks burn like acid rain.

She heard him cry. She heard him cry, and instead of walking away, she woke him up.

“Thank you,” he manages to croak.

Silence vibrates uncomfortably between them.

They’ve been in space for three months now, and he still doesn’t know how to talk to Echo. Doesn’t know how to breach that awkwardness that hangs between them, whenever she slips and calls him Master. Most of the time, he pretends she isn’t there, but now, alone in the darkness of his room, with her standing stock still with her head bowed in submission, ignoring her is impossible. He tries to think of something to say, but his mind is full of Mark and Peter’s screams and the roar of the black rain. Bellamy can feel the panic attack clawing closer and latches onto the last thing she said. _Night rounds_.

“You are aware we are alone in space, right? Why are you doing night rounds?”

She works her jaw. “If it is not permitted-”

“Yes, of course, knock yourself out.” Echo’s head snaps up, a mixture of bewilderment and alarm flashing through her eyes before she can sweep it away. Bellamy groans; he is too on edge to talk to Echo. “It’s a figure of speech. It means you can do as many rounds as you want to; there is no need to ask for permission.” She nods curtly, her shoulders relaxing a notch. “But you know you don’t _need_ to do it, do you? Nobody can attack us.”

 _There is nobody left_.

She swallows and answers defensively. “I know.” The silence stretches once again. Bellamy hates it, but doesn’t know how to make it go away, doesn’t know how _not_ to be awkward around her, and her weird little mannerisms and deference. They’ve explained a hundred times already that she is part of the group: not a slave, not a prisoner, but a full-fledged member of their new little clan. Welcome to space, it sucks. No matter how many times they do, she never seems to believe it. “But,” she adds, urgently, “if Skaikru could craft a way to fly and live in the Void, then others could have done it as well.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes, fluffs his pillow more aggressively than strictly necessary. “As I said, if it makes you happy, go right ahead.”

Echo nods but doesn’t move.

“Yes?”

“Are you-?” she swallows, shakes her head. “Nothing, Bellamy. Can I take my leave?”

“Yes. Good night, Echo.”

Silent as a cat, she moves toward the door. “Good night, Bellamy.” Something in her tone sends shivers down his back. He swallows the urge to call her back, to ask her to keep him company until he stops hearing the rain, to distract him until he can’t feel the bite of acid and the shame of so many failures.

Bellamy screws his eyes shut, curls into a ball under his blanket, and stares at the wall. 

****

He’s choking.

No, not choking.

Burning.

Bellamy opens his eyes, blinks rain droplets from his eyelashes. He’s chained to the ground a few yards away from the looming shadow of former Alpha Station. From here, he sees the wall of Arkadia and the beautiful mountains covered in blue forests. Dark cloud roll across the sky. Thunder grumbles loudly.

He is on his knees on slippery mud, his hands restrained with thick chains and zip ties. Rain falls on his naked back, each drop stinging like a whiplash. He pulls on the chains, feels them digging into his skin, viciously tearing it open. Rain burns when it comes into contact with his wounds.

Bellamy looks around searching for Kane, or Monty, anyone that may help him out of the downpour.

Someone stares at him from the dark doorway to Alpha Station. He blinks and recognizes a woman. She is thin as a rake, with unkempt brown hair and tired, disappointed eyes. “Mom,” the words burn as they claw through his raw throat.

Aurora Blake wraps her arms around her middle.

Rain falls into his mouth, slicing his throat open. “Mom! Help me!”

She tightens her lips into a thin, disapproving line. “Come now, Bellamy. Be a good boy.” Her words are stern and clipped with impatience. It is the same tone she always uses when she thinks he’s being an unreasonable brat.

Bellamy swallows, the rain rolls down his throat, and for an agonizing moment, he can’t breathe. He chokes, spits, his stomach heaves, bending him in two.

The rain is coming stronger now—a constant drumming on his back and shoulders, flying him open.

_Bellamy, where are you? You promised you would be here!_

He blinks the tears away, trying to find the source of Mark’s voice.

His feet slide uselessly over the muddy floor; when he falls, he lands in a puddle. Blood, warm and thick, splatters his face. At the door, his mother continues to watch with her tired eyes. Clarke stands beside her. He sees her through the curtain of blood and wants to weep with relief.

She won’t let him here. She’ll help, she…

“This is what needs to be done,” says Clarke, her eyes pleading for him to understand. “It is the only choice.”

Her words make sense and still… Still, it feels like a betrayal. Bellamy licks his lips. “Please! Please, I can help them if you take these chains off. Please!”

Aurora shakes her head with disappointment. “You can’t save anyone.”

Thunder crashes, louder this time. Loud enough to make him flinch. A second later, the rain intensifies, lashing his skin open, lathering him in fire from head to toe.

Bellamy tries not to breathe. Tries to free himself from the chains. Tries to think for a solution. Tries to call for help. He’ll beg, he’ll crawl on his knees and do anything if only they let him back inside.

His body writhes in the mud, his mind nothing but searing, blinding pain. He’s going to die, and he deserves it, but it hurts so much.

Bellamy screams.

“WAKE UP!”

His body snaps free of the chains, and he throws himself out of the acid rain and towards the door. And falls on something firm and soft.

He blinks the tears and rain away, trying to focus his eyes on what is directly under him. The floor is dry, smooth metal. Someone is trapped under him.

Big, honey-colored eyes stare up at him with a mixture of panic and desire. The familiarity of those cat-like eyes slams him back into his body, reminding him where he is. On the Ring. Safe. He is safe.

Bellamy crawls off Echo, feeling his face heating up with embarrassment. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Think nothing of it,” she stays on her back for a few seconds longer. Her top has ridden up, exposing her toned middle and promptly distraction Bellamy’s dizzied mind. He snaps his eyes away, clears his throat, and fight s the urge to curl his legs against his chest in front of the former spy.

“On your night rounds again?” he asks, desperate to chase the images of his dream away. His skin still feels raw; his muscles burn.

“I can’t sleep if I don’t make sure the perimeter is secure,” she says. It is the first piece of personal information she has offered in the seven months they’ve been on the Ring.

“Thank you for waking me up.”

Echo nods, curling her legs under herself with a graceful movement. She worries her bottom lip and then fishes something out of her pocket. It is a small plastic bottle, seven white pills inside. She sets it on the floor between them. “Harper said these keep demons away during sleep.”

Bellamy frowns down at the pills.

Echo has nightmares, too? Why didn’t he know about this? He chastises himself for the selfish thought in the next heartbeat, forces himself to remember he doesn’t like or trust her.

“Don’t you need them?”

“Compared to yours, my demons are tame.”

“I can’t accept it. Harper gave them to you.” He should tell her he’ll talk to Harper, get his own pills, even when they both know he won’t.

“It is an offering of atonement. I added to the pain in your day.” She taps the white cap of the bottle with one long, slender finger. “Allow me to give you some respite during your nights.”

She unfolds, raising over him with the elegance of a queen. “I will leave you to your rest, Bellamy.”

***

The rocket ship lands with a thump. Silent expectation crackles in the cockpit, but nothing explodes. They are alive. They are alive and on the ground.

“Welcome home, boys and girls,” grins Raven.

Murphy is the first out of his seat, bouncing towards the door with ecstatic glee. He throws open the hatch and is climbing out before Bellamy can tell him to be careful. Emori follows, discarding her clunky suit as she goes. Monty and Harper take their time.

Bellamy climbs out of their spaceship; his boots sink into the soil. It smells like rain, and the prospect of feeling it again after so long, joyful brings tears to his eyes. He watches his people, frolicking on the grass, enjoying the fresh air and the view of the trees. Echo comes to stand beside him.

“We made it,” he says. “We really made it.”

“I never doubted you for a minute, Haihefa.” He frowns at her, but she is smirking like it’s a joke, and Bellamy slinks an arm around her waist, pulls her closer. He wants to kiss those plump lips more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life.

He could drown in her honey eyes forever.

A raindrop falls on the proud arch of her cheekbone, running down towards her chin. And then another, and another one. He wants to lick them off her, follow their path down the long column of her throat, and into the valley between her breasts.

“Oh, I missed this!” shouts Murphy with a bark of laughter.

Bellamy can’t take his eyes off Echo, off the small splatter of green near her left pupil, and the flash of her tongue as she wets her lips in expectation.

Someone gasps. Far away, someone screams. In his arms, Echo shivers from head to toe. “Don’t tell me you are cold,” he smiles down at her, but something has changed.

Echo gapes, desperate for breath, her hands fist on his jacket, her eyes wide and terrified.

“Echo? What’s wrong? Echo, talk to me!”

“Bellamy!” screams Raven to his left. The mechanic is sprawled on the grass, her body convulsing violently, golden skin peeling to expose white bones.

“No, no, no, Emori!” Murphy presses his partner in his half-melted arms, his too-large eyes wide with horror. A little closer Monty and Harper twist like worms in the rain, their skins blistered and bleeding. Emori isn’t moving.

“No!” He hugs Echo to his side, trying to protect her from the rain, looks around for shelter, but they’ve moved away from the spaceship, and there is nothing there to protect them.

Echo’s legs give out from under her, she slips through his fingers and seems to fall forever before her slender body lands on the ground. Grass swallows her bones, leaving nothing behind.

“No!” This can’t be happening. They were safe. It was safe!

His people have vanished, the acid rain has gnawed their bones clean and turned them to dust, and he stands alone on a barren planet, surrounded by nothing but scorched trees and dunes of ash.

“Bellamy. Bellamy, you are safe.”

There is a slender hand on his cheek when he blinks his eyes open.

Echo tries for a small smile, but it looks unsure and wobbly.

“You were-“

Bellamy throws his arms around her, hugging her as close as he can, breathing her in, relishing in the startled canter of her heartbeat. She’s alive. She’s here, and she is alive. When her arms close around him, he feels himself relax a little.

“Everything is alright, Bellamy,” whisper the former spy into his ear, petting his hair and rubbing big circles on his back. It takes him an embarrassing amount of time to notice that he’s crying.

“I dreamt that I lost you,” sobs Bellamy, his cheeks aflame with embarrassment.

Echo shakes her head. “It was only a bad dream. We are all safe. Our whole clan, safe and sound. Monty says he’s perfecting his algae sludge to make it edible. Tomorrow, Raven and Emori will patch the hole on the outer hull, and we will have our training space back. Harper found another box of painkillers in storage yesterday. Murphy found the last pieces Monty needed to distill moonshine from his algae-water. See? Everyone is safe and sound; you don’t have anything to worry about.”

Bellamy doesn’t answer. For the longest time, they stay like that: him crying, his face pressed against her chest, hands clawing at her back. Her, whispering reassurances like he’s a small child.

A part of Bellamy hates himself for needing this, for not being strong enough to carry his own demons and his own guilt. Another, likes feeling safe in her arms, wants to stay here forever, to stop being strong and alone and in pain.

At some point, he manages to get some semblance of control back. His fingers are stiff as he unhooks them from the thin fabric of her nightshirt. He cleans his face with the backs of his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Echo scrunching up her nose with distaste. Bellamy is too wrung out to feel embarrassment.

“Sorry.”

“It’s quite alright,” when became her voice so impossibly soft and kind?

He looks down at the gray blanket on his bed. He knows he should let her leave, yet the prospect of being alone makes tears well up in his eyes again. His head hurts.

Echo rearranges herself on the bed. Her feet are bare. She is missing a toe.

“Do you want to tell me about your dream?”

Bellamy picks at a loose thread on the blanket.

They aren’t friends, not like he is with the rest of the clan. After almost three years, they’ve come into a routine and an understanding. They are civil with each other, they train and joke and work together, but they aren’t friends. They don’t tell each other’s secrets, and they don’t burden each other with their demons.

“You still can’t sleep without doing your night rounds?”

Echo swallows and turns her head towards the wall. “My rooms are too far away,” she says softly. “I wouldn’t hear.”

The answer makes no sense. Unless…

“It’s not your responsibility to wake me up from bad dreams.”

The flash of pink when she wets her lips reminds him of the dream, the way her eyes tracked his movements and the small, private smile when she called him Haihefa.

“I don’t like it when you suffer. And you beat yourself enough while awake.”

“Still, you should get your rest.”

“I wouldn’t.”

Bellamy doesn’t know what to say. “It is not right.”

“It is what it is.”

“Echo-“

“Think nothing of it. A little thing I do for myself.” 

Bellamy leans forward to squeeze her hand, trying to convey- He isn’t even sure.

They stay like that for a while. Finally, she brushes his knuckles with the coarse pad of her thumb. It is a featherlight touch, but Bellamy is acutely aware of it. The movement soothing the mad scramble of his thoughts into silence.

“Do you want to talk about your dream?” she is still staring intently at the wall. “Sometimes, it helps. Talking about them exposes the demons, chases them away.”

“Do you have someone to talk about yours?”

Her smile is small and shy. “I am not as friendless as I once thought. Or as I once was. Your people have been good to me.”

“I am glad,” and he means it, even if a small, jealous voice in his head wishes she would trust him enough to confide in him.

Silences are no longer awkward with her. They often sit together, nothing to say, enjoying the quiet, reassuring presence of the other.

“We were back on Earth. There was black rain.”

Echo shivers and squeezes his fingers. “You said you had lost us?”

Bellamy doesn’t want to think about that, doesn’t want to remember the feeling of Echo slipping between his fingers, the agony of seeing his people melting into the ground. “Was it all of us? Or me?”

The question startles him. Echo is staring at him, her face unreadable. Bellamy feels naked under the intensity of her gaze. He wants to run away and hide. He wants to wrap himself around her and never let go.

There is a reason why they aren’t friends.

And he could tell her the truth: that it was all of their deaths, that he was alone and scared and hated being left behind. That he had seen their horrified expressions as they asked for his help, and he had been as useless as ever. Or, he could admit that watching his people disappear had been painful, but losing her had filled him with a dread he couldn’t even begin to think about. That it was her, he had wanted to share that first breath of fresh air with most of all. Wanted to be worthy of, most of all.

Echo nods her head, looking away. But her thumb continues to draw reassuring circles on the back of his hand, and she doesn’t move to leave.

He is so grateful; he could weep.

***

Bellamy frowns in the darkness, unsure of what has woken him.

For a moment, the only thing he hears is that of the filtration system. Then, he hears it: a small hitching breath. He turns groggily, and his hand lands on a firm shoulder.

Echo.

A small smile curls his lip. In the last five months since they started sleeping together, she never stayed the night. He curls around her, pulling her closer to his chest, relishing in the texture of her naked back against his chest, in the firmness of her toned body and the intoxicating smell of her.

He buries his nose between her shoulder blades. She smells like the ground. Or, at least, like his memory of the ground.

She twitches, the hitching noise coming again, and Bellamy frowns.

Under his arm, her body is tense like a piano string.

He switches the light on. Echo’s curled into a tight ball, her legs pressed against her breast, both hands covering her mouth like she’s afraid she’ll make a sound. A high whine vibrates in the back of her throat, barely audible. Her eyes flit under her lids.

He presses a kiss to her shoulder before shaking her softly.

Echo wakes with a strangled gasp. White teeth flash when she bites her knuckles. He kisses her shoulder again. “Hey. Baby, what’s wrong?”

She takes a shuddering breath, screwing her eyes shut and bowing her head between her knees.

Bellamy tramples the sudden wave of panic and forces himself to remain calm, continue to rub soothing circles on her arm. Taking deep, measured breaths against her back and whisper sweet nothings against her skin until her body starts to relax again, and she lays her hand on top of his.

“Thank you.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Echo shakes her head without turning to look at him. “I can switch the light off.”

Another long pause, a shivering breath. “Yes, please.”

Bellamy twists to turn off the lights again and feels Echo relax slightly, pressing herself back against his chest. He tightens his grip around her, to protect her or to keep her together. Whatever she prefers. Whatever she needs.

“Do you ever dream of fire?” she asks, her voice the scared whisper of a child.

“Like Primefaya?”

“No. Another kind of fire.” She drags his hand off her shoulder, trapping it against her chest with a vice grip. “Queen Nia used to say that fire purifies. That’s why she took me in. I had been _cleaned_.”

Something in his chest breaks a little at hearing her small, scared voice. He holds her closer. “Queen Nia is dead, and you are free. She can’t hurt you anymore.”

“Tell me a story,” she whispers, still clutching his hand in both of hers. “Something beautiful, with no fire.”

Bellamy swallows. Nuzzles his head into her back, kisses the spot between her shoulder blades, where she has three small freckles. “I’ve dreamt with you tonight,” he says. “We were on the ground, and it was beautiful. The trees were green, and the grass was wet with dew. You were dancing and laughing.”

“Was it snowing?”

“Yes. White and silent and soft. And you were twirling in the flurry like a-“

“A child?” her voice is still shaky, but there is a hint of a self-deprecating smile.   
“Like a goddess. And I looked at you: so strong and so powerful, so soft, and so kind, and I can’t believe how much I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and commenting!


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